1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to a fault sensor in a cleaning assembly for a detone roller, and more particularly to a cleaning assembly which has all moving elements connected serially, such that fault can be detected by observing the current of the driving motor or the movement of the last element in the serial chain.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a typical commercial reproduction apparatus (electrostatographic copier/duplicators, printers, or the like), a latent image charge pattern is formed on a uniformly charged dielectric member. Pigmented marking particles are attracted to the latent image charge pattern to develop such images on the dielectric member. A receiver member is then brought into contact with the dielectric member. An electric field, such as provided by a corona charger or an electrically biased roller, is applied to transfer the marking particle developed image to the receiver member from the dielectric member. After transfer, the receiver member bearing the transferred image is separated from the dielectric member and transported away from the dielectric member to a fuser apparatus at a downstream location. There the image is fixed to the receiver member by heat and/or pressure from the fuser apparatus to form a permanent reproduction thereon.
However, not all of the marking particles are transferred to the printing material and some remain upon the belts or drum. Therefore, a cleaning assembly is commonly used to remove the excess marketing particles. The cleaning assembly usually includes an electrostatic cleaning brush (detone roller), a skive, and a receptacle to hold the excess marking particles (waste toner material). The devices within the cleaner assembly generally rotates to remove waste particles. To make the various devices rotate, one or more electric motors are connected to the devices through a system of gears and axles. In order to increase reliability, it is desirable to have each of the rotating devices connected directly (or as near as possible to being directly connected) to an electric motor. Therefore, if one motor drives multiple rotating devices, it is conventionally desirable to have the rotating devices each directly connected to the main drive gear of the driving motor. In this manner, the rotating devices are said to be connected to the single drive motor xe2x80x9cin parallelxe2x80x9d because each rotating device is connected to the same source (e.g., the main drive wheel of the driving motor). Obviously, because of space requirements, the different rotating devices will be connected to different points of the main drive gear of the driving motor.
It is difficult in the conventional structures to determine when a gear or axle of a rotating device has become broken or worn to the point where it fails to properly turn. Therefore, the image processing device may continue to operate with a defective cleaner assembly before the defect within the cleaner assembly can be identified. This causes the entire image processing apparatus to become contaminated, which requires extensive servicing of the entire apparatus. Therefore, there is a need to provide a structure which allows a malfunction within the cleaner assembly to be immediately identified so as to allow the entire image processing apparatus to be shut down before contamination occurs. The invention described below provides such a structure and avoids having to clean the entire image processing apparatus when a malfunction occurs within a cleaner assembly.
In view of the foregoing and other problems, disadvantages, and drawbacks of the conventional cleaner assembly the present invention has been devised, and it is an object of the present invention to provide a structure and method for an improved cleaner assembly.
In order to attain the object(s) suggested above, there is provided, according to one aspect of the invention, a method and structure for a detone cleaner assembly for an image processing apparatus. The cleaner assembly includes a drive motor, a plurality of rotating components, such that the rotating components form a serial connection to distribute a rotational force produced by the drive motor, and a current sensor for sensing a current being drawn by the drive motor.